Recommendations for a box set please.

The DC are going away with their Dad for about 9 days over Christmas. Now obviously this would be an ideal time to devote myself to deep-cleaning and decluttering the house, so I need you to save me from that by recommending something fascinating to watch instead.

I like strong female leads, dry and cynical humour, maybe a bit of action and intrigue, quirky characters and a fanciable man or two. Series that I have enjoyed in the past are Buffy, Firefly, Castle, West Wing, Veronica Mars, Northern Exposure and NCIS.

I should have mentioned no zombies. I don't know why it is that I can watch vampires with impunity but zombies terrify me and give me awful nightmares, but I simply couldn't watch TWD. I did try, but I couldn't get through the first episode.

I'm wondering if True Blood might suit me? I read the first six or so books and quite liked them.

I couldn't take to Dollhouse, I did watch some of the first series when it first started but didn't get drawn in.

Please stop recommending The Walking Dead. I would love to watch it. It has Egg from This Life being macho (I could never have imagined that) and David Morrissey being evil (he gives me thrills when he's evil), it has big story arcs and excitement in every episode. BUT it scares me and there is no way I'm going to watch it when I'm alone. Even the trailers for the most recent episode gave me nightmares, proper wake-up-with-jolt type nightmares.

The Good Wife might be worth a go, the few times I've caught a glimpse of it there were a lot of not conventionally attractive yet very sexy men in it. I'm fairly face blind so if a program has a lot of very attractive people with regular, symmetrical features and similar hair I have trouble telling them apart, which can lead to a fair bit of plot confusion.

Some series that I have been considering are 30 Rock, Rizzoli and Isles, Sports Night and True Blood. Any thoughts on those?